


Death Comes

by craple



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon - TV, Gen, Minor Character Death, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:50:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craple/pseuds/craple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for 3.10: He knows Death is coming to him when the child, silent as the wind, asks for their meat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Comes

**Author's Note:**

> the final episode was intense, i had to do this. even though i wish for more berric this season, possibly when he saw cat's dead body in the river? but yeah. it was amazing either way.

-

The Red Wedding still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

_This is not the kind of thing I do_ , he thinks, as the images of Robb Stark's dying wife flash behind his eyes, the feel of Catelyn Stark's cold limb corpse moments before she was thrown into the river beneath his fingertips.

His wine is cold but it is there. It does not wash all the nightmares to come within the fortnight and possibly more, for the time being it helps, and so he drinks and watches the fire and tries not to think of the same fire when the Young Wolf's bannermen were burn alive under the pyre.

It is another cold unforgiving day in the north. The ducklings are yet to be roasted, though he doubts he will be eating much despite the growling in his stomach. They start talking about The Red Wedding – again, for the hundredth times that day – like it is some big accomplishment on their part, when it is nothing but folly on his.

So he drinks his wine once more, nearly ripping the cap off the flask with his shaking fingers, thinking: The old gods are going to curse us all, until his mind is heavy with it, the liquor no longer helping. His heart clutched with scorching irons from the thoughts of it.

He spots the child first, circling the perimeter without looking at anyone but the man in front of him; at the back of his head with cold dead eyes as if he can burn him with the power of her eyes alone.

Thinking back on it – it was, probably, possible.

Next to him the man stiffens, survival instincts working in place (they've been tangled in this war for far too long, and the man who glued the wolf's head to Robb Stark's body – another _folly_ , he thinks – does not notice a thing. He is young, he reasons, and he has yet to feel the true nature of war other than killing unsuspecting supposed allies at The Twins.

"What do you want?"

(She looks like Death, in her brown leather shirts and light brown breeches.)

"Mind if I keep one?" asks the child with her eyes still attached on the man's neck. He rolls his eyes and turns his gaze aside; a hungry child, nothing more. A _female_ child, from the sound of her voice.

"Fuck off," he snaps at her. The cold dread coiling low in his belly has nothing to do with his hunger, and the hairs on the back of his neck are already standing from the cold wind, maybe. The night was fucked up enough he does not feel anything but dread all day.

"But I'm hungry," whispers the girl, softly. A slow caress that stings as cold as the weather, that makes his skin crawling in fear of _something_. His throat works and he lifts the flask down, feeling sick and guarded. The two men around him think of her as nothing, as their bodies have relaxed long before his own could.

She does not look hungry in ways that can be physical – but her eyes, silver eyes, blue eyes, seem to scream at him that she truly is hungry.

(Hungry for blood, he later thinks, as the blade of Sandor Clegane's twists through his stomach, spilling his intestine all over the cold, wet ground.)

"Does 'fuck off' mean something different from where you're from?"

"I've got money," she hurries to say, still as soft, still a whisper. His mind is screaming at him to run, run, _run_ ; this girl is nothing but trouble, _run_.

The girl uncurls the strap of her pouch, taking out a large silver coin and shows it to them between the tiny clasp of her fingers.

"What kind of coin is that?" the young lad asks again, so many questions, so many questions. The flask is left forgotten on his lap and the fog is clearing out of his head.

"It's worth a lot," replies the girl. The coin slips between her fingers with a loud 'clink', thudding on to the ground. She looks truly apologetic when she apologises, "Sorry."

He can barely hear the young lad's murmur of 'you little shit' before the girl is taking a knife out of nowhere, stabbing the lad twice, then holds his neck down like a horse being butchered, and stabs the back of the lad's neck – precisely at the same spot she had been staring a while ago – and she stabs and stabs and keeps stabbing –

And he's standing with his sword ready in hand, and staring at the figure of one Sandor Clegane with the burnt side of his face and watches as his friends were murdered, butchered like he has butchered the Northerners, the guests under their care, at The Red Wedding.

"Gods forgive me," is all he can mumble, as the sword strike his back and crushes his ribs, and he lies dying on the ground to hear whispers from Clegane and the girl.

"Is that the first man you've killed." It's not a question.

"The first man." The girl says.

Blood pours out of his throat just as his ribs pierce through his heart, just as the girl whispers a word:

" _Valar morghulis_."


End file.
